[Afamilyatwar-list] John Finch's 'A Family at War' (Part 1)

Wed Jan 29 06:27:27 CST 2020

I hope it’s all right to mention this here, as it’s not about AFAW. I’m reading Christopher Eccleston’s autobiography ‘I Love The Bones Of You,’ in which he mentions seeing ‘Sam’ when he was a small boy. At the time he had to wear shorts that had belonged to his much older brothers, so on him they were long shorts. He felt embarrassed by the length, but the shorts made him look like Sam in the programme.

Best wishes to everyone,

Christine

From: afamilyatwar-list-bounces at baylor.edu [mailto:afamilyatwar-list-bounces at baylor.edu] On Behalf Of Steve Finch steve at stevefinch.me |via| via Afamilyatwar-list
Sent: 28 January 2020 15:40
To: afamilyatwar-list at baylor.edu; Veit, Richard
Subject: Re: [Afamilyatwar-list] John Finch's 'A Family at War' (Part 1)

Richard

Thanks very much for doing this.

Incidentally if you know of any good (not vanity) publishers who may be interested in publishing Johns autobiography do let me know .... progress is very slow

Steve

Steve Finch 

Steve at SteveFinch.me (via SteveFinch.me at Gmail.com)

07966 512107

http://SteveFinch.me

https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevejfinch/

 <http://CommercialPhotographyNorth.co.uk> CommercialPhotographyNorth.co.uk | Website Management | Marketing Advice and Management <http://stevefinch.me> 

On Tue, 28 Jan 2020 at 15:21, Veit, Richard via Afamilyatwar-list <afamilyatwar-list at baylor.edu> wrote:

/var/folders/xv/3tlq5rhj7wv_2s6jgq8vf9z1qcg_fw/T/com.microsoft.Outlook/WebArchiveCopyPasteTempFiles/cid41a6f6a2-e691-418b-ac24-58810dead732

The following is an excerpt from the autobiography of John Finch and describes how fifty years ago the television series ‘A Family at War’ came to exist. John’s series, one of several he wrote for Granada Television, was the first to be shot in colour, although it survived a technician’s strike which resulted in eight episodes being shot in black and white. This did not appear to affect its popularity as it was ultimately screened and repeated in some 24 countries.

Apart from creating the story and the characters, John wrote twenty-nine of the fifty-two scripts, edited the whole, and was closely involved in all aspects of the production. Despite pleas from the management, he declined to continue the series beyond the fifty-two episodes in which he had shaped the story, and was supported in this by Granada’s managing director, Sir Denis Forman, who shared John’s feeling that to continue would be an anti-climax. Sir Denis has described how he felt that ‘A Family at War’ had proved that one of the prime rules of television drama is that all that is required is a good script and a good cast. This was subsequently emphasized by the series with which John followed ‘A Family at War’, the thirty-nine-hour series ‘Sam,’ which won several awards and an audience which knocked the longest running serial in the world from the top of the ratings.

Now aged 95 and still writing, John lives quietly in one room in the countryside and, twice a year, occasionally views, with a wry smile, the lists of those described as remembered “for services to” their various occupations, on which his name has yet to appear.

The following excerpt from John Finch’s forthcoming autobiography commences with the ending of Chapter 27, when John decides the time has come for him to resign his position as lead writer on ‘Coronation Street,’ Granada’s drama serial (and currently the longest running serial in the world), to create a drama series of his own. Prior to his work in television, the earlier chapters deal with his ‘riches to rags’ upbringing when the family is abandoned by his father. He is part educated at a charity school, goes to sea during World War 2, and becomes a writer in London living opposite Sir Winston Churchill, prior to entering the engineering profession in the North of England. 

(This is the first part of John Finch’s recollections of ‘A Family at War,’ as excerpted from his forthcoming autobiography. Five subsequent issues will be presented here in the weeks to come.)

John writes …

Though I was very grateful for the security the serial, as a genre, had provided for me over the past eight years, I knew that if I was to widen my horizons and follow my earlier instincts, I would stay comfortably in its warm but somewhat smothering embrace. I had no wish to leave Granada, but the company’s contribution to the network limited its potential market for drama. Within the company, however, there was an annual get-together of writers, directors, producers, etc., to discuss possible projects for the following year. The drawback was that to be invited to attend you had to provide some sort of written format outlining a project you had in mind.

I had for some time been sketching possibilities for a serial, finite but on a tapestry which was large enough to make its mark—more on the lines of the novel rather than the short story. It was, in short, to be a novel about the conflicts within a family arising from the larger conflict of a war. World War 2 was what I had in mind. The character sketches were fun to work on and I thought I had achieved a reasonable balance. I had, of course, been in the war, though not in any heroic capacity, but thought I needed to widen the view beyond my own experience as a radio officer, though I had served on several convoys. Numerous books had emerged dealing with World War 2, and I had read most. Everything seemed to be there except the opportunity to get it into production. The costs of a television serial, based on my past experiences, were likely to be excessive, and I had thought of radio. But I desperately wanted to establish what I saw as a new genre in what was undoubtedly the medium of the age. 

The annual get-together was due in a few days, and it seemed I might already be too late. I put out soundings to determine my chances of being included and found it was not impossible, provided I put my skates on. I gathered my notes together and started work on a format as concise as I thought possible while maintaining a vision of the whole. When I had finished, I somehow managed to get it on the pile. I called it ‘Conflict’.

I went to the meeting with very slight hopes. I am normally an optimist, but then I looked round the massive table and took in the assembled talent. Apart from the company big-wigs, whom I knew by sight, there were familiar faces that I associated with publications and popular television and theatre dramas, largely centring around the metropolis, who had obviously thought it worthwhile making the journey North. There was a sprinkling of Northerners I had come across from time to time, but they looked a pretty poor lot—virtually on my own level, I thought. 

The meeting began.

(To be continued…)

_______________________________________________
Afamilyatwar-list mailing list
Afamilyatwar-list at baylor.edu
https://mailman.baylor.edu/mailman/listinfo/afamilyatwar-list

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.baylor.edu/pipermail/afamilyatwar-list/attachments/20200129/b740c68b/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.png
Type: image/png
Size: 196369 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mailman.baylor.edu/pipermail/afamilyatwar-list/attachments/20200129/b740c68b/attachment-0001.png>